History of Permaculture
The term permaculture, meaning "permanent agriculture" was coined in the 1970's by two Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren working jointly at the Environmental Design School in Tasmania on developing a systems-thinking approach to developing a model of sustainable agriculture.
The original focus of permaculture was developing a beneficial assembly of plants and animals in relation to human settlements, mostly aimed towards household and community self reliance, and perhaps as a "commercial endeavor" only arising from a surplus from the system.
This original focus has broadened to encompass more aspects of social permaculture, business structures, strategies to acquire land and as a systems thinking tool that can applied to strengthen a wide variety of endeavors.
"Permaculture (Permanent Agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of cultivated ecosystems which have the diversity, stability & resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape, people & appropriate technologies, providing good, shelter, energy & other needs in a sustainable way. Permaculture is a philosophy and an approach to land use which works with natural rhythms & patterns, weaving together the elements of micro climate, annual & perennial plants, animals, water & soil management, & human needs into intricately connected & productive communities" - Bill Mollison
Permaculture is a design system that encompasses both "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture." It recognizes, first, that all living systems are organized around energy flows. It teaches people to analyze existing energy flows (sun, rain, money, human energy) through such a system (a garden, a household, a business). Then it teaches them to position and interconnect all the elements in the system (whether existing or desired) in beneficial relationship to each other and to those energy flows. When correctly designed such a system will, like a natural ecosystem, become increasingly diverse and self-sustaining.
All permaculture design is based on three ethics: Care of the earth (because all living things have intrinsic worth); care of the people; and reinvest all surplus, whether it be information, money, or labor, to support the first two ethics.
A distinctive feature of permaculture designs is that each element included in a system has multiple benefits, that each resource is supplied in multiple ways for resiliency and that each element is inter-connected with other elements. In this way a permaculture design imitates some of the functional complexity found within an ecosystem and by so doing becomes more stables, requires less input and has a more diverse output that conventional agricultural systems.
The original focus of permaculture was developing a beneficial assembly of plants and animals in relation to human settlements, mostly aimed towards household and community self reliance, and perhaps as a "commercial endeavor" only arising from a surplus from the system.
This original focus has broadened to encompass more aspects of social permaculture, business structures, strategies to acquire land and as a systems thinking tool that can applied to strengthen a wide variety of endeavors.
"Permaculture (Permanent Agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of cultivated ecosystems which have the diversity, stability & resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape, people & appropriate technologies, providing good, shelter, energy & other needs in a sustainable way. Permaculture is a philosophy and an approach to land use which works with natural rhythms & patterns, weaving together the elements of micro climate, annual & perennial plants, animals, water & soil management, & human needs into intricately connected & productive communities" - Bill Mollison
Permaculture is a design system that encompasses both "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture." It recognizes, first, that all living systems are organized around energy flows. It teaches people to analyze existing energy flows (sun, rain, money, human energy) through such a system (a garden, a household, a business). Then it teaches them to position and interconnect all the elements in the system (whether existing or desired) in beneficial relationship to each other and to those energy flows. When correctly designed such a system will, like a natural ecosystem, become increasingly diverse and self-sustaining.
All permaculture design is based on three ethics: Care of the earth (because all living things have intrinsic worth); care of the people; and reinvest all surplus, whether it be information, money, or labor, to support the first two ethics.
A distinctive feature of permaculture designs is that each element included in a system has multiple benefits, that each resource is supplied in multiple ways for resiliency and that each element is inter-connected with other elements. In this way a permaculture design imitates some of the functional complexity found within an ecosystem and by so doing becomes more stables, requires less input and has a more diverse output that conventional agricultural systems.
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David Holmgren
David Holmgren was born in Fremantle, Western Australia in 1955. He joined the Environmental Design School in Hobart, Tasmania in 1973, where he met Bill Mollison, who was then a lecturer at the University of Tasmania. Holmgren started writing a thesis on sustainable agriculture and, with additions from Mollison, this text became the legendary book Permaculture One, published in 1978. Holmgren has gone on to establish his own permaculture settlement at Melliodora and the larger eco-village of Fryers Forest. He works as a permaculture consultant, author and trainer.
The publication in December 2002 of the book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability saw deeper and more accessible structures insight into the formative ideas behind permaculture design. Principles and Pathways offers twelve key permaculture design principles, each explained in separate chapters. It is regarded as a major landmark in permaculture literature, especially as the seminal work, Bill Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual (1988) was published fifteen years previously and has never been revised. These principles of permaculture now provide a way to navigate permaculture designs and a checklist to refer to in our efforts to improve our thinking around what it means to create permaculture designs. |
Bruce Charles "Bill" Mollison (1928 – 24 September, 2016)
Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison was born in 1928 in Stanley, Tasmania, Australia. He claims to have spent his life up to the age of 28 as “living in the bush or on the sea”, hunting or fishing. He became a scientist with the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Tasmanian Inland Fisheries Department. He began teaching at the University of Tasmania in 1968 where he met David Holmgren. He started lecturing on Permaculture in 1976 and, following Permaculture One’s publication, he resigned his position in 1979 to develop and teach practical permaculture courses full time. He received the Right Livelihood Award in 1981.
Mollison founded The Permaculture Institute in Tasmania, and created the education system to train others under the umbrella of permaculture. This education system of "train the trainer", utilized through a formal Permaculture Design Course and Certification (PDC), has taught thousands of people throughout the world how to grow food and be sustainable using permaculture design principles. Today a permaculture design certificate is seen as the formative grounding in permaculture thinking to help develop a lens to see creative solutions to the worlds problems. |
"Permaculture is a creative design process based on whole-systems thinking informed by ethics and design principles.
This approach guides us to mimic the patterns and relationships we can find in nature and can be applied to all aspects of human habitation, from agriculture to ecological building, from appropriate technology to education and even economics.
By adopting the ethics and applying these principles in our daily life we can make the transition from being dependent consumers to becoming responsible producers. This journey builds skills and resilience at home and in our local communities that will help us prepare for an uncertain future with less available energy.
The techniques and strategies used to apply these principles vary widely depending on the location, climatic conditions and resources that are available. The methods may differ, but the foundations to this wholistic approach remain constant. By learning these principles you can acquire valuable thinking tools that help you become more resilient in an era of change." - David Holmgren.
This approach guides us to mimic the patterns and relationships we can find in nature and can be applied to all aspects of human habitation, from agriculture to ecological building, from appropriate technology to education and even economics.
By adopting the ethics and applying these principles in our daily life we can make the transition from being dependent consumers to becoming responsible producers. This journey builds skills and resilience at home and in our local communities that will help us prepare for an uncertain future with less available energy.
The techniques and strategies used to apply these principles vary widely depending on the location, climatic conditions and resources that are available. The methods may differ, but the foundations to this wholistic approach remain constant. By learning these principles you can acquire valuable thinking tools that help you become more resilient in an era of change." - David Holmgren.
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